Sage 200 technology deprecation

TLS (Transport Layer Security)

Sage 200 Professional utilises a variety of technologies, some of these are provided through other software vendors and as with all technology, older versions are not maintained. One such example is TLS, this is a security protocol, which is widely used by the software industry to encrypt data sent via the Internet. As seen with other vendors such as Microsoft, older versions of this protocol are being retired from their solutions and services.

Within the Sage 200 product, this protocol its used for a variety of services, including the Sage Licence Service.

The licencing service enables your Sage 200 solution to be licenced over the Internet. As your product version is using an older version of our licencing service, which uses a version of the TLS protocol that has been retired, we will be deactivating it from 01 October 2022.

Due to the nature of how the licencing works,  you will not be able to use your software, therefore you need to upgrade.

All currently supported versions of Sage 200 use the latest version of our licencing service. For the version you have indicated you are using we'll be providing an update (via your partner) to enable your product to connect to the new licencing service. This update can be installed remotely by your Sage Business Partner and should take no more than 15 minutes to apply. There may be a need to install a .Net update, which will lead to a server reboot. Please note: this excludes the time needed to log all users out, take any data backups or other pre-requisites.

Additionally, if your business chooses to deactivate the TLS 1.0/1.1 protocol on the PC which runs your Sage 200 software, it will impact how it operates. This is not addressed by the update and in such cases please talk to your IT department about their strategy on this, and then liaise with your Sage Business Partner to talk about options.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft have announced the retirement of Internet Explorer (IE). The announcement signifies that Microsoft will provide no further IE updates, including those of a security nature.

Your business may have its own technology strategy around the use of Internet Explorer, the retirement will likely have an impact of the availability of IE for future installations.

Whilst Sage 200 will continue to work with IE, other organisation such as banks, may reject their use due to the software being retired. Your Sage 200 version uses IE during installation and for other key features so there are some key facts you should be aware of:

• If you wish to install your Sage 200 version on a new computer without IE, the installation will not complete successfully.
• If IE is removed from the computer, the operation and use of the software will be impacted. This includes, but is not limited to bank feeds, invoice payments, self-service and workspaces.
  NOTE: Some of these features may not be applicable to the version you are running. Where it is relevant and depending on your selection, further information will be displayed as you continue through this guide.

Bank Feeds

Internet Explorer is also used to provide your Bank Feeds functionality. If you wish to continue to use the Bank feeds, you will need to apply an update we have provided to your Business Partner. This update contains changes to remove this features reliance on Internet Explorer. The update will need to be applied on all machines on which Sage 200 operates.

We cannot provide a definitive date when individual banks will choose to stop accepting interactions from solutions still using this browser, 
therefore we encourage you to action this as soon as possible.

Further information

Depending on your business assessment around Internet Explorer more generally, you may wish to upgrade your solution to our latest release: 2022 R1. The software is included as part of the licence fee element payable to Sage but there may be a cost from your Partner to install it. 

Please speak to your Sage Business Partner to discuss your requirements in more detail, and to co-ordinate with your partner around the installation of the necessary update.  If you have any third- party integrations, you may want to discuss this matter with your developer, your Partner should be able to help you do this.